Image Analysis: "Photo-Op" by Martha Rosler

Here's my intro I'm probably going to shorten it. I think it works.

In her photomontage, “Photo-Op”, Martha Rosler juxtaposes contrasting images of the Iraq war and relatively peaceful and posh Western living rooms in order to reveal the connection between them, despite the fact that they have been incorrectly perceived as unrelated. She implements various contrasting elements to reveal two extremely different sides of modern human experience, yet displays them next to one another at the same time in order to illuminate a relation between the two. The spoils of horrific war allow the complacent bottle blonde clones, who are presumably symbolic of self-indulgent and apathetic western culture, to indulge in luxury and recreational cell phone use, while remaining oblivious to the real world and the human suffering within it. They are sheltered in the comfort of their chic and fashionable living room, separated by its walls and unused window, which symbolize the fact that although westerners seem directly unaffected by tragic outside events, they have become too self-absorbed and obsessed with personal issues to be concerned with the human agony and decadence going on all around them. They are so egomaniacal and conceited that they neglect two other moribund women suffering a few feet away from them in their own home while they engage in vainglorious cell phone use. The chaos and destruction of the outside world is distinguished from the organized and artificial middle-class living room, while the image of the glamorous, untroubled, Barbie-like females contradicts the fearsome violence and devastation outside and the subhuman appearance of the hopeless, dying women only a few feet away. The profits and innovations of the military-industrial complex allow the more affluent and prominent Americans to continue living comfortably without fear of being assaulted by foreign and domestic enemies, while the luxurious lifestyle and the resultant apathy of the westerners allow world leaders to continue to get away with imperialistic genocide, perpetuating a vicious cycle and allowing it to fester until human existence decays entirely.